Robert Browne - Down Among the Dead Men

“I’m looking for my sister. Have you seen her come by the room?”

“No, ma’am. I see her this morning, but she don’t come again.”

“What time this morning?”

“Before breakfast. Right before we dock.”

Disappointed, Beth nodded thanks, letting him get back to work.

She was turning away when the steward said, “Her name is Jennifer, yes?”

Beth stopped. “Yes. How did you know?”

“She tell me last night when I come to turn down the beds. And earlier this morning, two people come knocking on your door, calling her name.”

“What two people?”

As if Beth had to guess.

“A man and woman.”

Ugh.

Why couldn’t those sleazoids just go away?

“If I see her,” the steward said, “I tell her you look for her.”

Beth thanked him a second time and moved back down the corridor. She went inside the stateroom again and flicked on the light, conscious for the first time that the place had been cleaned and her suitcase, which she’d left open on her bunk, had been closed and tucked in a corner.

God, this place was small. Borderline claustrophobic. And she sure as hell didn’t feel like hanging around in here, waiting for her phone to ring.

She was about to leave when she remembered that Jen had forgotten her wallet.

Closing the door behind her, Beth checked the dresser top and the nightstand but saw no sign of it. She opened Jen’s dresser drawer and found three pairs of panties, some socks, two barely there bikinis, Jen’s cruise line voucher and passport, and nothing else.

Did that mean she’d come back to get the wallet? Or had she left it somewhere else-like the Santiagos’ stateroom?

Maybe that was the reason they’d been knocking on the door.

But why, then, hadn’t Rafael said anything about the wallet when he saw Beth at the restaurant? Wouldn’t he have given it to her?

Unless, of course, he had already given it to Jen.

Or Marta had.

Could they have run into Jen at the leather-goods shop as Beth waited at the restaurant? Had Rafael merely been distracting Beth so Jen and Marta could sneak away for a date with some Jell-O shooters?

The notion seemed so goddamned juvenile it wasn’t funny. But it was also within the realm of possibility. Maybe Beth’s earlier thought had been right. She really had been ditched.

As she stood there feeling anger start to boil up, her gaze drifted to her suitcase, and she had half a mind to scoop it up and follow through on the threat she’d made in the dining room. Find the nearest airport and go home.

The ultimate ditch.

The quintessential “fuck you.”

But what if she was wrong? What if this wasn’t a junior high prank at all?

What if Jen was in some kind of trouble?

They were, after all, in a foreign country. And while Beth had never had a xenophobic bone in her body, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she’d felt just the slightest bit of trepidation as they’d walked the streets of Playa Azul.

She thought of the gangbangers who had been ogling Jen with undisguised lust.

Could one of them have followed her? Confronted her when she was alone?

Beth’s anger dissipated as the uneasiness grew inside her stomach. She tried to talk herself down.

She was, after all, in a profession that examined the worst of people. Her natural instinct was to look at the dark side of human nature, simply because she was always surrounded by it. She’d interviewed enough rape victims and prosecuted enough of their assailants to permanently color her view of the world.

She’d always tried not to let this carry over into her private life, but how could it not?

Yet she knew it was still too early for panic.

Much too early.

She considered heading back into town to have another look around but decided to check the ship first, from top to bottom, stern to bow-every restaurant and bar and extracurricular activity in progress-in hopes that she’d find Jen hiding out.

Or getting drunk.

Because a drunk, unhappy Jen was better than no Jen at all.

“ May I help you, ma’am?”

The purser was a gray-haired, distinguished-looking gentleman in a crisp white uniform. He stood behind a narrow counter, typing something into a computer.

Beth had waited five minutes to speak to him, but now that she was at the front of the line she wasn’t sure how to start without sounding melodramatic.

“I…I’m a little worried about my sister,” she said.

The purser continued typing, barely glanced up. “Is she ill? Would you like some seasick tablets?”

He started to reach under the counter, but Beth put a hand up, stopping him.

“No, it’s not that,” she said. “We went into town this morning, and…well…I guess you could say I’ve misplaced her.”

She followed this with a soft, embarrassed laugh. This whole situation had thrown her off her game and she felt more like a hapless victim than a seasoned prosecutor.

The purser frowned. “Misplaced her?”

“She’s missing.”

“And this happened on board ship or in port?”

“I just told you,” Beth said. “I lost her in Playa Azul.”

“How long ago?”

“About an hour and a half.” Beth had spent a good half of that time conducting her search of the ship, which had yielded a big fat donut. “We were having lunch and she went across the street to use the restroom. I haven’t seen her since.”

The purser shrugged. “An hour and a half isn’t long. There’s a lot to do in town.”

“You aren’t listening,” Beth said. “She went to the restroom and never came back.”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation. Maybe she got distracted, saw a shop she wanted to explore, and lost track of you. It happens. She’ll turn up.”

He shifted his attention to his computer screen again, and feeling her assertiveness return, Beth reached out, blocking his view with her hand.

The purser jerked his head back in surprise and irritation.

“I just told you,” Beth said, “ my sister is missing. I think she may be in trouble. I’ve tried calling her half a dozen times, but her phone is turned off. I’ve searched every inch of this ship that’s accessible to guests and-”

“Why search the ship if she disappeared in Playa Azul?”

Beth looked at him. It was certainly a reasonable question. “I thought she might have come back here.”

“Well,” he said with another shrug, “that’s easy enough to find out.”

“How?”

“Her seafarer’s card. You remember how security scanned your card when you came back on board?”

Beth nodded. She’d been asked to push it into a slot so a ship’s security officer could check the photo they had on file to make sure she was really who she claimed to be. The photos had been taken as they boarded the ship for the first time back in Long Beach. It had seemed a bit Big Brotherish to Beth, but she understood the reasons for it. Security at the DA’s office was nearly as tight.

“If your sister came back to the ship,” the purser said, “they would’ve scanned hers as well. In which case, we’ll have a record of her return. Did you book your passage together?”

Beth nodded.

“What’s your cabin number?”

Beth told him and he keyed it into the computer, then frowned.

“I have a note here that you were involved in an incident in the dining room last night.”

Beth felt herself redden. “My sister,” she said. “She had too much to drink. It won’t happen again.”

He eyed her warily, then hit a few more keys and stared at the screen a moment.

“I’m afraid there’s no record of her return. So she must still be in town. I can contact the Mexican authorities, if you like, but I’m pretty sure they’ll agree that an hour and a half isn’t all that much time.”